A press release hit my inbox over the weekend that sent me into a nostalgic YouTube spiral. Apparently AEP Texas, Public Service of Oklahoma and the Southwestern Electric Power Co. are bringing back their Louie the Lightning Bug character in safety literature aimed at school kids.
After watching a few of "Louie's" old PSAs, I started emailing people I know who live all over the country to see how widespread the little guy's fame was. Just about everyone remembered him once they saw a clip.
If you don't remember Louie, he was a prominent figure during your Saturday morning cartoons, where his PSAs (sponsored by your regional utilities) would warn you about the dangers of fallen power lines, flying kites near power lines, or messing around with power outlets and cords in the household. (click hyperlinks to see the YouTube videos)
The voice of Louie and his animation style could be familiar to you even if you don't recognize him on sight. In his original PSAs, Louie was voiced (and sung) by Jack Sheldon, whose voice also featured prominently in "Schoolhouse Rock!" Especially the "I'm Just a Bill" skit, that walks kids through how a bill becomes a law.
Being reminded of this stuff and seeing how much of the visuals and music that I actually remember to this very day made me wonder why companies don't bother much with public service announcements anymore. They were hugely popular in the '70s and '80s, made big contributions to pop culture and were clearly successful in communicating their messages.
Utilities are always talking about the lessons they need the public to understand. Maybe a PSA with a catchy tune is in order every now and then.
Showing posts with label Utilities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Utilities. Show all posts
Monday, April 15, 2013
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Sandy was everything they said she would be
This morning while watching news footage of Hurricane Sandy's aftermath, for some reason I thought of "Jurassic Park."
On CNN, I could see just about every prediction meteorologists made the day before come true, one by one. It made me think of the chaos theory-obsessed mathematician Ian Malcolm who predicted Jurassic Park's dinosaurs would be impossible to contain.
Later on, with a full-grown tyrannosaurus broken loose and stomping around, Malcolm says regretfully, "Boy, do I hate being right all the time."
The day the storm made landfall, I called into a webinar hosted by Earth Networks, a weather forecasting firm that makes the WeatherBug iPhone app that I use myself just about every morning.
The company's meteorologist, Mark Hoekzema, predicted storm surges around Long Island, flooding in New York, heavy rains in Maryland and Virginia, wind gusts throughout New England and blizzards in Appalachia.
If you want to see how accurate those predictions turned out to be, I recommend reading the story I wrote yesterday and comparing them with today's headlines.
All we have to go on in times of severe weather are the predictions of scientists and the mass media's transcription of those predictions. Sometimes predictions fall short of coming true — call it chaos theory. Sometimes this leads to people getting a little blase about how severe the storm could be — even if they live in or near its predicted path.
Sometimes the media over-hypes what the scientists are trying to say. Many people felt the warnings about Hurricane Irene in 2011 were exaggerated, even though the storm was the fifth costliest storm in U.S. history.
One group who can never assume that the worst won't happen, however, is electric utilities. It's a scary thing to lose power in the middle of a disaster — especially with frightening news stories coming in and people tweeting some pretty awful pictures of storm damage. And if utilities aren't completely on point with their recovery efforts — or even if the public merely doesn't think the lights are coming back on fast enough — they have to face an angry public.
This particular storm was everything they said it would be. Some 7.5 million people were left without electricity, multiple billions will have to be spent on repairs, thousands are likely homeless, hundreds of thousands are cut off from transportation and almost 40 Americans are now dead. And that's just what we know about now. There will certainly be stories in the coming days and weeks of other kinds of damage. Whether you're in a utility, working for the media or just some a bystander hunkering down and hoping for the best, pays to be careful.
NOTE: The Red Cross is seeking donations, preferably money, blood or volunteer time. Click here for more information.
On CNN, I could see just about every prediction meteorologists made the day before come true, one by one. It made me think of the chaos theory-obsessed mathematician Ian Malcolm who predicted Jurassic Park's dinosaurs would be impossible to contain.
Later on, with a full-grown tyrannosaurus broken loose and stomping around, Malcolm says regretfully, "Boy, do I hate being right all the time."
The day the storm made landfall, I called into a webinar hosted by Earth Networks, a weather forecasting firm that makes the WeatherBug iPhone app that I use myself just about every morning.
The company's meteorologist, Mark Hoekzema, predicted storm surges around Long Island, flooding in New York, heavy rains in Maryland and Virginia, wind gusts throughout New England and blizzards in Appalachia.
If you want to see how accurate those predictions turned out to be, I recommend reading the story I wrote yesterday and comparing them with today's headlines.
All we have to go on in times of severe weather are the predictions of scientists and the mass media's transcription of those predictions. Sometimes predictions fall short of coming true — call it chaos theory. Sometimes this leads to people getting a little blase about how severe the storm could be — even if they live in or near its predicted path.
Sometimes the media over-hypes what the scientists are trying to say. Many people felt the warnings about Hurricane Irene in 2011 were exaggerated, even though the storm was the fifth costliest storm in U.S. history.
One group who can never assume that the worst won't happen, however, is electric utilities. It's a scary thing to lose power in the middle of a disaster — especially with frightening news stories coming in and people tweeting some pretty awful pictures of storm damage. And if utilities aren't completely on point with their recovery efforts — or even if the public merely doesn't think the lights are coming back on fast enough — they have to face an angry public.
This particular storm was everything they said it would be. Some 7.5 million people were left without electricity, multiple billions will have to be spent on repairs, thousands are likely homeless, hundreds of thousands are cut off from transportation and almost 40 Americans are now dead. And that's just what we know about now. There will certainly be stories in the coming days and weeks of other kinds of damage. Whether you're in a utility, working for the media or just some a bystander hunkering down and hoping for the best, pays to be careful.
NOTE: The Red Cross is seeking donations, preferably money, blood or volunteer time. Click here for more information.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
No, Obama is not paying your utility bills
By Jeff Postelwait
Online Editor
Presidents promise a lot, particularly in an election year, but President Barack Obama is apparently getting credit for delivering on a promise he never made — namely, paying people's utility bills.
Major utilities like PG&E, Westar Energy and SDG&E have posted some announcements in recent days to alert customers of a "nationwide scam." It seems imposter utility workers are going door to door with promises that the president has started a program by which customers can obtain credits to pay for their utility bills. The scammers, as usual, are sniffing around for people's personal information, like Social Security numbers and the like, in the furtherance of other scams.
Obviously, utilities don't want their good names tarnished by some phishing fiasco, so several of them are doing what they can to spread the word that there is no such government program, and that you should always confirm that someone claiming to be a utility worker is legitimate before handing over any personal information.
Also par for the course when it comes to con artists, the main targets appear to be elderly people. The scammers, according to reports, make their contacts door to door, by phone or online and ask for the customer's information. After they get that, they give the customer a fake bank routing number (not unlike the notorious "Nigerian prince" identity theft scams) where the customer can make payments. They are promised credit on that account, but the payment makes its way to the scammer's pockets, and not to any utility company.
So... basically be on your guard, and beware of phony utility workers bearing gifts. It's not a bad idea in an election year to take everything with a larger than usual grain of salt.
Online Editor
Presidents promise a lot, particularly in an election year, but President Barack Obama is apparently getting credit for delivering on a promise he never made — namely, paying people's utility bills.
Major utilities like PG&E, Westar Energy and SDG&E have posted some announcements in recent days to alert customers of a "nationwide scam." It seems imposter utility workers are going door to door with promises that the president has started a program by which customers can obtain credits to pay for their utility bills. The scammers, as usual, are sniffing around for people's personal information, like Social Security numbers and the like, in the furtherance of other scams.
Obviously, utilities don't want their good names tarnished by some phishing fiasco, so several of them are doing what they can to spread the word that there is no such government program, and that you should always confirm that someone claiming to be a utility worker is legitimate before handing over any personal information.
Also par for the course when it comes to con artists, the main targets appear to be elderly people. The scammers, according to reports, make their contacts door to door, by phone or online and ask for the customer's information. After they get that, they give the customer a fake bank routing number (not unlike the notorious "Nigerian prince" identity theft scams) where the customer can make payments. They are promised credit on that account, but the payment makes its way to the scammer's pockets, and not to any utility company.
So... basically be on your guard, and beware of phony utility workers bearing gifts. It's not a bad idea in an election year to take everything with a larger than usual grain of salt.
Monday, March 26, 2012
A utility pole tree?
By Jeff Postelwait
Online Editor
On Spring Break weekend, my family, friends and I went on a 7-mile hike in the Winding Stair Mountain National Recreation Area in Electric Light & Power's home state of Oklahoma. The area, which is home to the Ouachita National Forest, extends into Arkansas. It's the oldest national forest in the southern states and was a setting used in the John Wayne classic "True Grit," as well as the 2010 Coen Brothers remake.
The striking thing about the land for me, being an Oklahoman, was the very tall, very vertical cedar trees. From my first step out of my car, I could hear the wind rushing through the treetops (and not much else). With as many ice storms, violent winds and tornadoes that come through the area, there aren't many tall trees in this part of the world — although we do have some battle-tested utilities and co-ops that can vouch for the intensity of this kind of severe weather.
About a third of the way into the hike, I rounded a corner on the trail that cut near a small creek and saw something worth taking a few pictures of. I'm not the world's most experienced hiker, and I don't know a lot about forests or trees, but I'd never seen a tree quite like this one before.
To me, this tree's trunk looked for all the world like a utility pole. I thought that someone's "Lost Dog" poster might not look too out of place duct-taped to this tree.
The area where the thick, papery bark had fallen away revealed a smooth, shiny surface that was immediately familiar. Yet when I looked skyward, what I saw looked more like the other cedar trees that made up this forest.
After the hike, I had to do a little bit of Googling just to satisfy my curiosity. Even though I work for a company that deals with the transmission and distribution side of the utility industry, I wasn't exactly certain where all those familiar-looking power poles actually came from. A few sources online have said that cedar wood is used by utility pole manufacturers because the wood is more resilient to moisture, weather, warping and temperature changes — clearly qualities that you'd want if you were making utility poles.
So, again, I'm not an expert, but I wanted to share a little scene from my hike that I thought was interesting. Also, there might be someone out there who could comment a little more on where utilities get their poles and what kind of trees are used to make them.
Happy trails!
Online Editor
On Spring Break weekend, my family, friends and I went on a 7-mile hike in the Winding Stair Mountain National Recreation Area in Electric Light & Power's home state of Oklahoma. The area, which is home to the Ouachita National Forest, extends into Arkansas. It's the oldest national forest in the southern states and was a setting used in the John Wayne classic "True Grit," as well as the 2010 Coen Brothers remake.
The striking thing about the land for me, being an Oklahoman, was the very tall, very vertical cedar trees. From my first step out of my car, I could hear the wind rushing through the treetops (and not much else). With as many ice storms, violent winds and tornadoes that come through the area, there aren't many tall trees in this part of the world — although we do have some battle-tested utilities and co-ops that can vouch for the intensity of this kind of severe weather.
About a third of the way into the hike, I rounded a corner on the trail that cut near a small creek and saw something worth taking a few pictures of. I'm not the world's most experienced hiker, and I don't know a lot about forests or trees, but I'd never seen a tree quite like this one before.
To me, this tree's trunk looked for all the world like a utility pole. I thought that someone's "Lost Dog" poster might not look too out of place duct-taped to this tree.
The area where the thick, papery bark had fallen away revealed a smooth, shiny surface that was immediately familiar. Yet when I looked skyward, what I saw looked more like the other cedar trees that made up this forest.
After the hike, I had to do a little bit of Googling just to satisfy my curiosity. Even though I work for a company that deals with the transmission and distribution side of the utility industry, I wasn't exactly certain where all those familiar-looking power poles actually came from. A few sources online have said that cedar wood is used by utility pole manufacturers because the wood is more resilient to moisture, weather, warping and temperature changes — clearly qualities that you'd want if you were making utility poles.
So, again, I'm not an expert, but I wanted to share a little scene from my hike that I thought was interesting. Also, there might be someone out there who could comment a little more on where utilities get their poles and what kind of trees are used to make them.
Happy trails!
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